The present invention relates generally to the field of data storage and consistency modeling, and more particularly to virtualization of consistency groups in a cloud environment.
Cloud computing involves application systems which are executed within the cloud and operated through internet enabled devices. Cloud computing is computing in which large groups of remote servers are networked to allow centralized data storage and online access to computer services or resources. Cloud networks can be classified as public, private, or a hybrid of the two. Cloud services within the cloud service are made available to users on demand via the Internet from a cloud computing provider's servers as opposed to being provided from an end user's personal servers. Cloud services are designed to provide easy, scalable access to applications, resources, and servers, and are fully managed by a cloud service provider. A cloud service provider can fluctuate in size based on the needs of its users and the resources of the cloud service provider.
A consistency group is the concept of grouping all system, middleware, and application volumes that are required to be managed, as a consistent entity. Consistency groups enable users to group “related volumes” together representing, for example, a business transaction, that may involve multiple transactions across a single database/file system, or multiple databases/file systems located on a single or multiple heterogeneous server platform.
Current data protection systems try to provide continuous data protection which enable the organization to roll back to any specified point in time within a recent history. Continuous data protection systems aim to minimize the down time in which site data is unavailable during a recover and to enable recovery as close to possible to any specified point in time within a recent history. One challenge to continuous data protection is enabling compatibility and utilizing a consistency group such that workloads can run across processor architectures and hypervisors. Such a problem may arise in a cloud computing environment.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,977,593 B1 is generally within the field of continuous data protection and describes “[a] new virtual [consistency group] CG may be created which may consist of several internal CGs. The virtual CG may be presented to the user and the user may be able to perform all actions on the virtual CG.” (U.S. Pat. No. 8,977,593 B1, Col. 3, Lines 19-22).